The Alpha and the Omega
by Digital Holocaust
Summary: Garrus runs into more trouble than he bargains for during his first mission as a Spectre as he meets a bounty hunter on the trail of a krogan mercenary who plans to sell information about deep space to several crime organizations in the Terminus System.
1. Chapter 1

Preface: I wanted to write a story about Garrus' first mission as a Spectre for the Citadel Council whilst trying to keep some elements of the game included into this original story. Everything from Mass Effect is copyright Bioware and some of the characters are my own.

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Chapter One

It was the soft hum of the drive core that had woken him from his sleep. His brow furrowed questionably above his closed eyes as he tried to piece together his surroundings through sound alone. He was on a ship, he was aware of that much.

_But what ship? And whom did it belong to? _

Before he could continue to question himself further, he rose awkwardly onto his side before propping himself up onto one elbow. His eyes slowly flickered open as he began wincing painfully into the darkness.

He was on a ship all right but the interior that enclosed him didn't seem to be that spacious at all. Turning his head slightly he was able to catch sight of the flickering orange console screens in the cockpit. Two pilot seats sat in front of them but they seemed to be unoccupied. This gave him the strongest indication that he was aboard a fighter class vessel, but could it possibly be interceptor class perhaps? He groaned softly as he rubbed the top of his head, refusing to think about the ships details any further for the time being.

None of this made any sense to him, there were only fractures of what had happened previously on Amaranthine. The crime syndicate there were much more cautious and uncooperative than they had been since Commander Shepard had dealt with them and he blamed Shepard entirely for allowing them to continue their illegal businesses rather than taking them in or convincing them to disband. But he supposed that he would never get the information he needed from Helena Blake if Shepard has chosen the alternative options in regards of what to ultimately do with them. His mentor had taught him not to jump the gun too soon and to evaluate every situation to gain advantage over his enemies. He finally concluded that he couldn't exactly hold a grudge towards the Commander's actions as in the end, the Commander had been right about everything.

The indicators on the consoles blinked their amber glare into his eyes and snapped him out of his momentary thoughts. The ship was on autopilot, which probably meant the ship was on course to some system while running on its FTL thrusters.

He swung himself around to plant his feet firmly on the ground beneath the cot. He was tender and sore; whatever happened back on Amaranthine was obviously the source of his discomfort.

"I see you've come around." Said a voice from beyond his line of vision.

It came from his right side, from what he could tell was a makeshift mess hall. It was too dim to see any real detail but he was able to make out a figure shutting down a computer console and shifting their full attention onto him from behind a small table.

"Where…"

"You're on the Cobra MKIII interceptor." The voice cut his question off quickly but not curtly enough to arouse any caution from him. The voice was undeniably female, yet she was not talking to him in Trade Standard Galactic but in turian .

He looked down instinctively at his omni-tool but it was so badly crushed by whatever impact had struck him down on the Planet, that it was hard to make out the chosen turian dialect she spoke in. It was easier to understand than any other language though and he was almost relieved to hear that she could speak in a tongue that wasn't so foreign to him. He felt almost ashamed at the fact that he wasn't very fluent in Standard Galactic and this realization made him clear his throat a little.

"That explosion knocked you right off your feet, turian." She continued with a slightly amused tone.

"If I hadn't of been there after the impact, you may not of regained consciousness at all."

Garrus said nothing. Recollections of broken memories were beginning to piece back together, but they were flooding back too fast and too soon.

Finally he spoke out, not to the figure shrouded in darkness but at himself, a despairing realization of his dawning mistakes.

"He got away…"

"Yes… but I know where he's heading out to." Her words were too cool, too reassuring and he suddenly felt threatened.

"How do you know? My missions are…"

Again, she cut him off before he had a chance to finish.

"…Top secret, whatever. I don't care about your mission. Your mission interferes with mine."

The figure rose from her seat, Garrus could make out parts of her attire that were almost as black as the darkness that surrounded her. Only the orange pulses of light from the cockpit's consoles made it possible for him to see the lithe figure moving towards him.

"We're both after the same guy," She continued before stopping just before his feet. "Our goals differ however."

She was quite tall and slender but she lacked the build of someone who had served in the military. The lack of spikes behind her head gave more than enough indication that she was not turian or even asari. She was human.

He looked up at her with a frown of annoyance.

"I'll be taking him back in a body bag" Garrus protested, "There is absolutely no way I can keep him alive after interrogation. Do you know how many times he's escaped while being placed in custody? I can't let you interfere with Citadel council business."

"If I don't take him back alive, my contract is over…" She folded her arms beneath her chest "And most likely that bounty will be placed on my head if I break the contract."

Garrus grit his teeth "That's not my problem."

"Hey, I just saved your ass out there, you didn't ask me to but I couldn't just leave you out there if you were still breathing."

Garrus let out an exasperated sigh as the stranger continued.

"I'll let you off at Omega, we'll go our own separate ways…"

"…I can't let you jeopardize the mission" It was Garrus' turn to cut her off.

There was silence for a few moments and Garrus could feel the tension in the air, it was thick enough to cut through with a knife. Finally the stranger backed away from his feet with a few steps to lean against the side of the table. During the silence, Garrus knew that he could take over the small vessel effortlessly if he wanted to. No one would miss a bounty hunter at all and the stranger knew this. Yet he felt that his honour was being compromised here, she did rescue him after all.

"How much is the contract worth?"

"About 20,000 credits." The human shrugged indifferently.

"Let me complete my mission and I'll double that amount."

She shook her head quickly, "That doesn't cover the cost of my life if I fail to bring him back alive."

Garrus had just about enough of sitting down and he rose slowly to his feet. Grunting in effort as he steadied himself against a locker beside the cot.

"I'll figure something out…"

The figure nodded once in acknowledgment then tilted her head to one side in mild curiosity.

"I'm sure you're hungry… we'll continue this conversation over dinner."

Garrus shrugged loosely and reluctantly allowed her to guide him over to the table.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

Reaching into his backpack, Garrus pulled out a modest supply of rations. The swooshing sound it made as it opened made the stranger glance over her shoulder as she stood in front of a small burner and hob just a few meters away from the turian.

"You don't have to eat that crap you know." She exclaimed, turning her attention back to the cooker.

"Oh?" Garrus momentarily ceased fumbling around inside his pack. "Are you suggesting that I'll be eating whatever it is that you're having?" He snorted abruptly. "Talk sense."

The stranger shrugged coolly, "No, but I can fix something up for you. It would beat having to eat that sludge that you consider rations, right?"

"I'll pass." Garrus answered as politely as he could, but there was the unmistakable hint of straining in his tone. Memories of eating at human establishments that masqueraded as turian restaurants were beginning to make his stomach feel like it was caving in on itself.

"I'll cook you something." Her tone became more insistent and from this point he could tell that she wasn't going to back down easily.

"No, really… I'm not even that hungry anymore." This wasn't beyond the truth; Garrus was beginning to feel queasy now that the memory had distracted him from everything else.

"If you don't want it just leave it, but I think you'll feel a lot better once you get something nutritious inside of you."

Garrus no longer cared to argue about the matter, he wouldn't be to blame if she wasted supplies on him. He shook his head disapprovingly before shoving his backpack aside to the end of the table as the stranger opened a small mini-fridge beside the counter and went straight to work on preparing the dextro.

He watched her in silence from time to time as he went about repairing his mangled omni-tool and noticed that she was slicing up some defrosted Taruumi meat. Taruumi were plentiful on Palaven, a small and metallic-skinned opossum like creature that were mostly prey animals for turians. They were quite easy to breed and cultivate in specialized, artificial biospheres, in fact the elcor had made quite the profit of producing these for developing turian colonies.

Whilst thumbing out pieces of shrapnel from the fractured Logic Arrest Tool's tiny circuit board, he assured himself that looking good is one thing but settling well on his stomach was another.

After a good twenty minutes, the stranger made her way back over to the table after clearing up after herself. Garrus didn't look up and acknowledge her as she placed a bowl down in front of him; he seemed to be completely absorbed in repairing the omni tool. The stranger sat down and began eating in silence, never taking her eyes of her own food. It was the awkward silence that made Garrus cut a soldered link by accident; he growled under his breath and cursed in turian as he furiously slammed the screwdriver down onto the table.

The woman raised a cynical eyebrow at him from behind her bowl. "It's getting cold." She motioned with a nod towards his omni tool. "Maybe you should leave that alone for now."

Garrus sighed and tilted his head back to stare up at the ceiling for a few moments before meeting her at eye-level again, the sudden eye-contact made him feel uneasy and he hastily dropped his eyes to stare at the contents of his bowl.

"Taruumi stew." She followed his gaze that fell upon the bowl "Be thankful I didn't slip you any sedatives."

Garrus raised his eyes again to meet hers but this time he didn't look away, he wasn't going to allow her to intimidate him. He eyed her up cautiously for a few moments then picked up his bowl, ravenously chugging the contents down his throat. The stranger began laughing with a childlike innocence, there was no hint of maliciousness in her tone yet he couldn't help but rest his eyes on her again. He was genuinely confused, what caused her to laugh like that?

"What?" Garrus frowned questionably at her.

"Ah, don't take it personally. I just get the urge to chuckle every time I see you guys eat." She shook her head slowly from side to side apologetically, the laugh dying down into a softer giggle.

Garrus gave her a cocky, self-reassured look "Well, knives and forks aren't exactly very practical for us."

"I know." The stranger directed a smile down towards the table, hiding her embarrassment at the sudden outburst. "It's just… endearing in a very scary way."

Garrus couldn't help but smirk, the intimidation game had backfired on her and he felt somewhat victorious. The stranger shrugged, silently admitting defeat whilst grinning back at him and something contagious stirred between them, they were both chuckling to themselves while eating and the atmosphere felt more relaxed between them.

As Garrus conversed with the stranger in a more comfortable manner, he noticed that her teeth looked a little sharper than the average human, the canines in particular. But he recalled he had read codex entries over the extranet that humans who chose to predominantly carnivorous had subtly evolved in a way that made their teeth appear sharper in comparison to a human who chose to be strictly vegetarian. He never noticed this with the human crew of the Normandy when he was a part of Commander Shepard's crew and neither did he really notice it when he was working with human civilians and officers alike back at C-Sec.

He felt rude for staring and as soon as he was finished eating, he sat his bowl down and yawned a little in contentment and finally, it was the right time to break the silence.

"That was pretty good." He admitted as he stretched his legs out underneath the table.

"Yeah…" The stranger nodded in agreement before trailing off as if she was in deep thought "…I'm just thankful I wasn't cooking for an elcor, then I'd be in trouble."


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

After their meals had settled, the stranger could very well see the weight of thought on Garrus' mind. He had been staring at the table leg for the past ten minutes, tapping his foot idly against it now and then as if hypnotized by the reverberating sound it made through the deck of the ship.

"Shall we get down to business?" the stranger was beginning to follow the hypnotic power of Garrus' boredom and it was rather irritating to watch after a while.

Garrus nodded almost immediately "That's exactly what I wanted to talk about" his sudden interest pulled himself out of the lazy slump he was in and he sat up straighter in his chair.

For two hours they talked on an almost professional level. The stranger learnt the importance of Garrus' mission and Garrus learnt some important information about his target.

The krogan had been following an old pirate trade route that passed through three mass relays from the Horse Head Nebula to the Voyager Cluster and he was now en route towards the Omega space station. He was more than just a hired mercenary for Othar Keene; he was a valued informant who had an incredible knack for gathering data from classified resources and selling that data to the highest bidder. As it turned out, the data that the krogan acquired came from a derelict ship, which –aside from being badly damaged – had memory banks that were left remarkably intact.

What exactly the krogan had salvaged was beyond the realm of Garrus' knowledge. All he knew was that it was a crime to salvage the contents of a turian scout ship that was within the boundaries of the Traverse. There were reports that the ship was already derelict before it drifted into the Traverse and that in itself was rather strange news. There were usually distress signals sent out to the nearest comm. buoys if a ship and its crew ran into signs of trouble from pirates, but there were no known recordings of any distress signals sent out at all. It was only three months ago that an Alliance freighter class ship had confirmed that debris was making cargo drop-offs difficult within the Asgard system of the Exodus Cluster. Plans for turian freighters to come in and clean up the mess had been made but Terra Nova was on a state of alert since batarian terrorists had tried to turn Asteroid X57 into a weapon of mass destruction. The amount of red tape to get through with the Alliance and the turian fleets would of took almost a year to settle so the council decided to send a spectre in to clean the job up quickly and efficiently.

The problem was, the krogan got to it first.

Garrus knew that the krogan spy had to be terminated indefinitely; he had even bumped into him several times whilst working for C-Sec. He was charismatic, conniving and enigmatic yet there was never a chance to convict him of doing anything out of the ordinary because he was so careful at covering his tracks. Garrus rubbed at his temples thoughtfully and looked over at the quiet and intrigued bounty hunter. This kid was in way over her head and this worried him terribly, any reasons for suspicion would cause the krogan to drop all plans and disappear into the terminus systems until another prosperous deal came up for him and the council will never learn of what had happened to the turian crew of the STF Thargoid.

Garrus caught the look of anxiety on the strangers face and empathized, she had originally thought that this was just another contract job and she was led to believe that the krogan was nothing more than a common mercenary. Garrus obliged in sharing a little of the details with her but he refused to tell her the whole story as it was made confidential by the council. Now she had realized her predicament and she had more than enough knowledge to go on that she was in lot of trouble in more ways than one.

"You could always seek immunity on the Citadel" Garrus proposed tentatively.

The stranger placed both her hands face down on the table in front of her in protest. "Absolutely not, I'd be safer on the run then in the protection of some crooked C-sec officer"

Garrus couldn't deny the possibility of a torturous interrogation or a silent assassination if a bribed officer wanted to make a few credits on the side. He had seen credits passed around dirty hands way too often for his own liking while he was a turian agent and it would be foolish to assume that she would be safe and sound in the hands of the law.

He began to softly drum his talons upon the surface of the metal table. "The only other suggestion is that you work with me on this and only on the condition that you keep your head low and not compromise my mission in any way whatsoever."

The stranger drew in her breath, ready to protest again before Garrus raised a finger mid-air to silence her. "Afterwards, you'll get your credits as I offered them to you earlier, double the amount of your contract and…" he paused while clasping his hands together in front of him, leaning closer towards her and lowering his voice to a more softer, agreeable tone "…I'll get you out of the terminus systems and into the traverse, there's a developing colony planet that I know of that you'll be safe on. You'll have a new identity, everything you need and I will be the only person to know about it all."

The stranger closed her jaw shut and gazed dolefully back into Garrus' eyes, for a moment he thought that the offer wasn't good enough for her. "Once a bounty hunter, always a bounty hunter" was a motto that his father liked to boast and usually the presumption was always true to a point. The stranger kept quiet for a few moments, pondering over the proposal before speaking again, her tone full of anxiety.

"On what guarantee do I have that you won't mention me to anyone?"

Garrus motioned over to the empty bowl that now rested back in its place on the shelf above the mini-fridge. The woman's eyes followed his; confused at first but then her expression relaxed when she realized what it was he was trying to say.

"The same guarantee you gave me that the food wasn't ill-prepared."


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter four

Rizok spat out an unhealthy amount of mucus and orange blood onto the catwalk in front of his ship. He had landed at Omega's spaceport roughly four hours ago and trading goods for fuel wasn't going as swimmingly as he had previously hoped. He wanted to make his transactions speedy, the meeting with Keene was less than an hour away and waiting for the elcor merchant to finalize his slow and monotonous bartering was making the krogan increasingly furious by the second.

"Genuinely concerned, I'm afraid that the goods fail to meet my standards." The elcor warbled. "Apologetic refusal, these food supplies are not fresh enough to sell on my market store."

"Maybe if you had bought them as soon as I disembarked, they wouldn't be fermenting right now in the dockyard." Rizok snapped, emphasizing his point by giving one of the crates a sharp, short kick.

"Modest proposal, I can give you 800 credits for both crates," The elcor seemed unhinged by the krogan's temperament. "Absolute resolution, I cannot offer you more."

Rizok gave both crates a sharp shove towards the elcor and simply nodded "Take them, I don't have time for this nonsense."

The elcor gave a slight gesture with his hand in acceptance and slowly sauntered off away from the krogan. A few moments later, Rizok heard a beep from his omni-tool that confirmed the credits had been dispatched into his account. He sighed in annoyance; eight hundred simply wasn't enough to buy the required amount of fuel needed to get to the Attican Beta. He always liked to have an alternative plan just in case the original plan didn't pay enough. He didn't have time to worry about refueling at the moment, he had to be at his rendezvous point in twenty minutes and he was more than sure he could wrangle some credits from his contact if need be. Hell, he could even pull a few unsuspecting victims into a side-alleyway and mug them if he needed to. That idea bought a sick and twisted smile to his face, credits were the least of his problems right now and they were most certainly not the last.

As he turned out of the dockyards and into the industrial area of the city, he paused momentarily to cough up some more dark-coloured phlegm. His chest had been giving him trouble since Amaranthine; someone had laid out a bunch of proximity mines just outside the entrance of the Blue Savannah syndicate's hideout. The absurd part was that it wasn't he who had triggered the mines, he remembered that a misfired shot from a sniper rifle had made him instinctively leap around to the side of the building, safely shielding him away from any other shots that may of caught him. He heard a louder shot ring off the corner of the hideout, a distinctive sound that came from a high-caliber rifle closer to where he was standing. Then a split second later, the unmistakable boom of exploding mines ricocheted around his ears, he was fast enough to dodge the blast but the resulting chemical fumes had already began to fumigate the area. The resulting fallout had left his throat and lungs slightly charred but thankfully, he wasn't within range long enough for the paralyzing agent to take effect on him. The strong winds on Amaranthine worked to his advantage and the gaseous smoke had cleared within a few minutes, he concluded to himself that making his journey back towards his ship was the hardest task but the oncoming blizzards made it quite difficult for anyone else to follow his tracks once out of their range of vision.

Rizok continued walking down the crowded bustle of the city, his lumbering and threatening gait made most of the city dwellers move out of his way as he barged through the winding streets. Keene had suggested meeting up in a bar that lay between the outskirts of the markets and business areas. Much to his distaste, the bar was a turian establishment ran by a rather erratic hanar as he last recalled. The hanar paid monthly deposits to the local turian mobsters in exchange for their protection and for use of their facilities. Still, the hanar was a religious zealot with a tendency to read out psalms of the Enkindlers at the most inappropriate times, usually when important business deals were being made. This was the cause of many bar fights which strangely enough were accompanied impromptu by the establishment's piano player. Rizok snorted laughter as he rounded another corner; he recalled that the same piano player always was the last person in the joint to be harmed by any of the resulting chaos.

The krogan could see the broken neon light of the establishment within range now but nothing else seemed out of place about it. A salarian named Noek who was a regular customer had damaged the sign earlier that year when some wise guy thought it would be hilarious to slip the poor guy a caffeinated beverage when he wasn't looking. The krogan wasn't aware of the details of what happened next but word came back to him a week later that the salarian had butted the neon sign so hard that the heat had branded a huge letter "L" into the middle of his forehead. Rizok grunted to himself sardonically, the bar sign suffered lightly in comparison to Noek which now simply read "THE FU KARD" instead of "THE FULL TANKARD".

Rizok didn't see the attraction in unnecessary cruelty; he was a strong believer in efficiency and quick and painless terminations were his expertise. If his contact had any intentions of pulling a fast one on him, he would be more than happy to demonstrate how well he could express his form of art in action.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

He lowered himself down carefully into the co-pilot's seat, trying not to brush his thighs and back against any sharp edges. The aches had mostly dulled into infrequent throbs now and he felt sure enough that he didn't have to keep his guard up around the stranger the whole time. The soft leather of the seat felt much more comfortable than the cold hard metal of the chairs in the mess hall and his jaw line and mandibles loosened as he rested his head back against the top of the seat, he almost felt relaxed and he didn't even bother to open his eyes as the stranger plopped down into the pilot seat next to him.

The stranger was working the console, shifting the thrusters from autopilot back into manual control and she turned her head a little to watch Garrus resting back comfortably in his seat. She snorted mischievously to herself as they both jerked forward when the thrusters began their deceleration and grinned when Garrus flicked open his eyes to give her a scolding look. As far as she could tell, any signs of internal injuries were non-existent and once satisfied with her superficial analysis of him she then turned her head back towards the monitor. Only a moment later did Garrus crack open his ice-blue eyes to glance over at her in a more thoughtful fashion.

She had at least told him some minor details about herself, her name was Ishtar and she was in her mid-twenties. The name itself would conjure up images of her being from middle-eastern descent but her near alabaster-white skin gave indication that this obviously wasn't the case. Her face was symmetrical and punctured only by two sienna brown coloured eyes. Her dark eyebrows and hair were unkempt however as short tousles of hair fell just directly above her eyes, a short and practical style that Garrus figured that she cut by herself. Nothing about her appearance seemed unnatural, he was more than sure she could of tinted her eye colour and dyed her hair if she really wanted to and so the only interesting facial feature that stood out to him was the line of indigo facepaint that stretched out from ear to ear across her cheeks and over the bridge of her nose. He didn't want to interrogate her too much about her background, but he was more than certain that the markings on her face resembled those he had seen on the turians from the Cuuthlok colony that resides on one of Palaven's moons.

_I don't want to get too involved with her on a personal level, anything could happen between the present time and the future. When I took this job I knew that having emotional ties to anyone was not an option. It's not that I wouldn't like to… it just wasn't ever a part of the job description._

He sighed quietly and looked away from Ishtar, crossing his arms behind the back of the headrest as he stared out towards the stars glimmering outside of the small viewport. He remembered feeling somewhat lonely back when he was in C-Sec, being on the beat and filing paperwork gave little time to socialize with people on a personal level. Working with a team that accompanied a Spectre was the closest he got to talking outside of professional duties and he really did miss working with Commander Shepard, a woman who would spend more than a dozen moments of her precious time just to chat to him.

If working in C-Sec was mostly solitary work, would working as a Spectre prove to be even more solitary? He was puzzled about this most of all, the Commander seemed to have enough time to… get on even closer terms with certain members of her crew but the promise of long-term romance seemed even more distant than the promise of long-term friendship and he wasn't really that interested in forming short-term partnerships just for the sake of taking the edge off his loneliness. He remembered trying it once with an asari officer that he took a liking to, he wasn't even sure that he could call it a relationship as meeting opportunities became less and less frequent as they were transferred from one posting to another. He was fond of her however but as time went by, intimate encounters became nothing much more than just a wave from a passing patrol car, he decided not to pursue casual relationships again any time soon after that experience.

"Another five hours and we'll be at Omega" Ishtar's voice snapped him back from his daydreams and he glanced over at the console in front of him.

Sure enough, the updated navigation chart showed their distance away from their target location and Garrus was somewhat impressed that she had aligned them almost perfectly in a direct line to the space station.

"I have to drop off some cargo when we land, but I shouldn't be too long." She motioned to Garrus to take control of the console as she raised herself from her seat.

His gaze followed her upwards until she was towering over him to reach into one of the compartments above his seat. "What sort of cargo…?" Garrus hesitated and Ishtar sensed the dread in his voice.

"Nothing illegal, I just trade reasonable amounts of minerals, furs and electronics for a little credit to help restock the ship." She was still rooting around inside the compartment above his head; a determined expression crossed her face.

"Alright then" He nodded then furrowed his brow curiously at the commotion happening inside that compartment, suddenly Ishtar's expression was one of discovery, and she smiled down at Garrus before throwing an object into his lap, making him jump back in his seat in surprise.

"That's a gift from me to you!" She exclaimed with a giggle.

Garrus looked down at his lap and saw the sleeve of an omni-tool poking out from between his legs, he hoped that Ishtar wasn't staring at it which caused him to awkwardly flare his mandibles in embarrassment, turning his head away before looking back up at Ishtar apologetically. To his relief, Ishtar was more excited about his reaction to the actual omni-tool.

"W…where did you get this? Savant X models don't come cheaply." Garrus stammered, still a bit perplexed by all the sudden attention. It didn't made things easier when she leant down in front of him until she reached eye level and flashed him a sharp grin.

"I trade goods as well as hunting down fugitives" She shrugged then rested her hands on her knees, "Some of them leave behind some decent gear." Garrus began to slip the omni-tool around his wrist and locked it into place, he flexed out his arm beneath her chin and the orange holographic interface suddenly lit up her face. He looked at her with a sly, knowing smirk, "I figure that 'leave behind" is the polite way of saying "looting their bodies" huh?" She grinned and turned her head to him again, nodding and smiling and he chuckled and shook his head in bemusement.

She tapped the side of his chair and he turned his attention back to the dashboard. "I need you to pilot while I gear up." Garrus nodded in agreement and swung the chair back around to face the front; he had no trouble in flying a small two-man fighter, it was one of the basic requirements in Spectre training. Ishtar watched him for a few moments to check that he knew what he was doing, then turned towards the messhall before disappearing from view. Garrus first heard a swishing noise, which he recognized as a sliding door then heard cluttering as she began unloading her equipment from one of the lockers on the wall onto the table in the messhall.

He quietly observed her from time to time and she seemed too engrossed in doing her own thing to really notice. She was upgrading a Volkov VII sniper rifle with anti-personnel rounds and phasic rounds and sometimes the orange glow of a Cipher omni-tool would periodically illuminate the darkness, capturing the serious expression on her face as she worked fluidly and without hesitation.

"You're… Infiltrator class?" Garrus casually asked from inside the cockpit.

There was no reply at first and he thought the familiar click of the weapon being locked into the back of her Gladiator X light armour was the only affirmation he would get.

"I've never served in the military." Was the reply that came a few seconds later, in the dim light created by the omni-tool he could see that she was wrapping a black scarf around her neck and head in a fashion that covered the majority of her face except for her eyes and finally she flipped the two loose ends of the scarf behind her back.

"But?" He pressed on, turning his head back towards the console momentarily.

"But nothing… I spent five years in boot camp and didn't want to pursue a career in the military, that's all."

"Fair enough." Garrus ended, the answers weren't very satisfying at all but he supposed she wasn't obligated the share any personal details with him.

Finally Ishtar made her way back to the cockpit and sat down next to him in the pilot seat, the console in front of her chimed as if the ships computer was satisfied that it's captain was back at the helm.

"I can take it from here Garrus." She turned to him and nodded "You can…"

She was cut off mid-sentence by another chime by the console, this time the computer's VI alerted her with its smooth almost lyrical female voice.

"Video call coming through from Ramazk Cureth."

"One moment." She responded and Garrus took this as his cue to make himself scarce.

He rose awkwardly from his seat, cramp had settled into his right foot and he shook off the pins and needles as Ishtar motioned with her hand towards one of the lockers in the back of the messhall.

"Your equipment is in the one next to mine."

He nodded and left the cockpit; he noticed that apart from the fading cramp in his foot that he didn't feel as sore as he did a few hours earlier. He breathed a sigh of relief as he reached the locker and began empting out the contents onto the top of the messhall table.

"Patch it through"

The monitor screen flickered for a second with static before it settled onto a grainy visualization of an office furnished with light cabinets and dark walls. In the middle of this room was a huge dark leather chair stationed behind a light marbled desk and in it sat an angry looking turian with cream coloured plating and dark brown markings. Ishtar smirked from behind her mask; she thought the turian contrasted well with his classy looking furniture.

"What the hell happened on Amantherine?" The turian bellowed and Ishtar's smirk quickly faded away.

"There was a problem…" She cleared her throat. "The krogen knew he had company."

The turian leaned forward in his chair until his arms were rested on top of his desk "Are you saying I hired an incompetent sniper, Ishtar?" his talons were now forming a steeple below his chest. "I hope not for your own sake."

"No sir." Ishtar quickly retorted, "I wasn't spotted. It seems I wasn't the only sniper who was interest in the target."

In the back of the messhall, Garrus winced as he went about upgrading his HMWSR X in a tentative manner; the conversation was making him nervous.

"It seems they triggered off a bunch of my proximity mines too." Ishtar continued, biting her lip anxiously from behind her scarf.

Garrus locked the sledgehammer rounds into place and leant his weight onto the barrel for a moment as he listened in on the intercom. This much had been correct, but if she were to identify him as a Spectre, things would get messy real quick.

"Did you see who it was?" The turian asked with slight suspicion in his voice.

"No sir, I couldn't even tell if they were female or male from that distance." Ishtar's tone became more serious and convincing "Judging from the carnage left by the mines, I'd say it would be even harder to tell what species they once were, I surely doubt they survived the blast."

"Good!" The turian concluded before resting his hands into his lap beneath the desk." I don't want any more mistakes like this to happen again Ishtar, otherwise your contract is over."

"Sir." Ishtar nodded.

The turian narrowed his piercing amber eyes and his voice dropped into a disconcerting tone "The last thing we need is the Citadel council getting involved."

"Of course…" Ishtar concurred and the turian reached his hand over the desk, the communication jittered and ships monitor was filled with static once again.

Ishtar sank backwards into her seat and sighed deeply, twisting her head around to look over to Garrus who was now sliding his rifle into place on the back of his medium Silverback X armour. It locked with a click and Garrus turned his head to meet his eyes up to Ishtar.

"I want you to stay put at the docking bay and do your business while I search around for some answers." The authority in Garrus' tone was calm, soft yet serious. "Don't come looking for me no matter how long I take."

Ishtar nodded as she rose from her seat then stood within the doorway that joined the cockpit and the messhall together, leaning against the frame as Garrus synchronized his armour with his omni-tool.

"If you're not back within 20 hours, I'm leaving without you."

Garrus looked up from his omni tool and locked eyes with her before averting his attention back to the synchronization. "That's fine." He continued without raising his eyes again "…you don't need to speak in turian anymore, the translator is active."

Ishtar shrugged, "I've been away from humanity for so long that I hardly remember how to speak anything but turian."

Garrus said nothing but he wondered how many more connections Ishtar had to turians but again he had to chastise himself for trying to get involved in her business. After he had finished his sync test he excused himself to get past Ishtar. She moved aside to allow him into the cockpit where he lowered himself into the co-pilot seat.

"Why do people other than my targets walk in front of my sights when I'm trying to take a shot?" Ishtar asked as she budged past him to get to her seat.

Garrus smirked yet his eyes were on the monitor, another hour until touchdown on Omega.

"You make it sound like it happens all the time." He retorted in a cheeky manner.

Ishtar raised her hands in the air and fell back into her seat with a bounce. "Oh if only you knew!"

Garrus chuckled and took control of the ship, aligning the interceptor up with the correct plan of coordinates, after he was satisfied with the navigation plan he began working on his strategy for taking down Rizok for the remainder of the journey.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six.

Rizok opened the entrance door with ease and slipped his large figure into the public house. The place was a complete dive and these sorts of surroundings made him feel much more comfortable in comparison to such a pristine, sterile environment such as the Citadel. Inside he was greeted almost immediately by the rising sour smell of alcohol and glancing across the venue he could see that the tobacco smoke hung close to the ceiling like a heavy, gray storm cloud. Squinting through the smoke he was able to make out the bar and just as he expected, the hanar manager was floating around the back of it as usual, serving a broad range of customers from humans to volus. He nodded to the hanar as he acknowledged it's presence and the hanar courteously waved a tentacle in his direction by way of greeting.

"This one welcomes you with warm hospitality, please take a seat!" the hanar chimed with an over-eager manner. He was serving five customers at once, pumping the alcohol from their taps with two tentacles whilst handing glasses to their rightful owners with three others. Rizok snorted in amusement, this was the main reason why the hanar's patrons called his bar the best in town.

The krogan shook his head dismissively, "Not yet Tournon, I'm looking for a friend of mine."

"Ahh, I see. This one suspects that you mean that one over there in the lounge." Tournon bought himself around to the side of the bar then clapped two of his front tentacles together. Seconds later a human waitress came over to him to see what it was to be needed and Rizok observed how drawn and haggard she looked. He supposed it was through serving rowdy customers all day; but just from looking at her he could see that she was still very fluid and graceful with her motions and just before he had time to finish that thought the waitress was approaching him quite swiftly but not without some caution in her step.

She warily eyed the eight-foot krogan and kept a fair distance away from his hulking body. "Sir, please…" She began meekly "…over this way."

The krogan followed closely behind the waitress, carefully avoiding stepping on the back of her heels. As they neared the lounge area, an ochre-coloured salarian rose from his seat by the furthest table and reached out both his hands as if a long lost family member had just interrupted him and surprised him. Rizok refused to return the embarrassing gesture and simply stood before the salarian with his arms crossed.

"Yes yes, Rizok is it?" The salarian seemed ruffled by the krogan's lack of manners. "I've been waiting in this dreadful place for a whole five minutes. You're late."

The waitress turned and bowed her head to both patrons to excuse herself but not before Rizok caught the eye rolling she meant for the salarian as she walked away. Rizok smirked slightly in response before turning his attention back to the salarian. He was quite extravagantly dressed for someone who did most of his dealings on Omega and he suspected that his dealings paid well in order for him to dress so smartly and act so uppity in a dump like this.

"I was delayed and five minutes is hardly something to be pissed about." The krogan casually quipped, shifting from one foot to the other with his arms still folded against his chest.

"I don't like your tone." The salarian retorted in disgust "I'm a very busy man Rizok, I don't have time to dwell in such…" He paused, grimacing in distaste as he quickly scanned his eyes over the lounge. "…Surroundings."

"Then lets get down to business." Rizok huffed and pulled out a stool from beneath the table, anyone else looking at the sight of the giant krogan sitting on a small seat would've had to resist the urge to stare.

"Yes… well" The salarian took his cue to be seated and pressed down his gowns behind him before sitting delicately down on his stool. "The matter of this data you required out in the traverse… of what value is it to me?"

The krogan shrugged with genuine honesty, "I don't know, I haven't read the data yet as I haven't had the time to decrypt it." He popped open the underbelly of his omni-tool and pulled out an OSD before placing it down in front of himself on the table. "I did find some logs on the ship's computer though, there seemed to be some obvious distress amongst the crew. Something about not being able to navigate through dense patches of space, no stars, no light except for inside of the vessel and from the sounds of it, they were terrified..."

Keene's eyes grew wider as Rizok explained his findings but they never shifted from the OSD disc that was sat beyond his grasp. Rizok frowned and placed his hand over the disc and the salarian quickly raised his gaze back onto the krogan's face.

"So… you're obviously not interested in what happened to the crew." The krogan began in a restless tone "but you're interested in what's on this disc?" He shifted around uncomfortably in his seat as he waited for an answer. He didn't know what it was about Keene that gave him the chills. "How much are you gonna give me for it?"

Keene began stammering a little as if he was rudely interrupted from deep thought. "I… I... must have this." The rattling motions that his eyes were making in their sockets were beginning to make Rizok feel on edge "10,000 credits! Right away… for that disc."

Rizok began to rise from his seat and the salarian panicked, rising up with him. "15,000! I meant 15,000 of course!" He stumbled as he rose to his feet and Rizok noticed Keene was trembling fiercely.

The krogan tossed the disc onto the table and Keene fumbled at it, panting as he fell on his knees to the floor while clawing at the disc on the table until it was in his hands.

"You mustn't… mustn't tell _anyone _about this." The salarian looked up at the monstrous bulk before him with wild, desperate eyes. His hands still clutching around the disc as if he were a beggar caught with a stale piece of bread. "You mustn't!"

The krogan had already turned his back on Keene whilst walking away towards the front of the bar. He raised a hand up above his head nonchalantly as the salarian followed him out of the bar with his feral eyes, the knuckles on his hands growing whiter until they looked like bone.

"Mustn't."

Once outside, Rizok attempted to shake out the images of the creepy salarian from his head and leant himself up against the wall of the bar's side alleyway. He had met a few odd characters in his time but he never met one that acted so calm and collected one moment to acting so wild and desperate the next - especially without good reason.

Coming into the possession of that OSD was no easy task either. A crewmember on one of the Alliance freighters just beyond Terra Nova salvaged some of the debris that floated towards one of the small beacons that he was on duty to repair. Rizok was old friends with the engineer and between them they decided to split the credits if they were even able to sell the thing. A few days ago, the engineer made the drop off with the Blue Savannah, smuggling in arms as well as the OSD. Both men had to be quick though; anything out of the ordinary was promptly reported back to Alliance headquarters and in turn would attract the attention of the council. Rizok was prepared to sell it to a contact in the Attican Beta who was working for the Shadow Broker but they had only offered him 7,000 for it. The krogan was surprised at how much he got for it from Keene but the salarian had taken a much eager interest in his findings than the Shadow Broker did, he didn't think anything was strange about Keene to begin with, until now.

And then there were the snipers on Amaranthine that he crossed after he made his pick up. He initially thought it was a double cross by the Blue Savannah; it would make sense that they wouldn't want the Alliance shutting them down for arms dealing if one of their suppliers decided to spill their guts. But he felt uneasy; there was also the off chance that he was already being tracked down by a Spectre.

Sounds of gunfire began to echo throughout the area and he glanced around the corner with one squinted crimson eye before gruffly peeling himself away from the wall. He coughed once and spat on the ground, groaning at the sight of the blood still congealed within the mucus. It could be weeks before his lungs began to heal, he strode away towards the residential area of the city, too lost in his own thoughts to even notice the panic on the streets.

Within moments, Rizok was lost amongst the sea of the crowd that was rushing away to either escape the gunfire or rushing to get away from each other.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

The small Interceptor shook heavily for a few moments before easing into slightly slower movements as huge clamps outside held the sides of the ship into place. Ishtar reached up to the overhead controls of the ships' power source and began to flick off the lights inside the adjoining mess hall and cockpit as Garrus rose to his feet from the seat beside her in silence and made his way over to the hull's pneumatic door. Sure enough, there were plenty of cargo crates ready for unloading and he figured that it would be most unwise to help Ishtar unload onto the docking platform, it just wasn't worth the risk of being seen together which would undoubtedly endanger them both.

Ishtar and Garrus both looked back at each other momentarily as they heard the unmistakable hiss of the station's docking equipment position them to a more accessible entry against the loading bay. Ishtar rose from her seat and moved over to where Garrus was positioned against the frame of the hull, staring blankly at the hull's door as if he was staring straight through it.

"There's no need to be nervous..." Ishtar began carefully, curving her head around slightly as if trying to distract his gaze from the door.

Garrus' didn't turn around to meet her eyes "Heh... I don't think I need to tell you how serious this is. Mentally preparing for every possibility and outcome is not comparable to any emotions of anxiety."

"Suit yourself." Ishtar shrugged, popping the tension forming around the collar of her neck. "If you're ready, I'll be opening up the hold now." She finished her sentence with a swift thump of her fist against the metal frame beside her and hit a reasonably sized red button that controlled the door and a voluntary soft beep emit from the overhang above them.

Light began to slowly fill in the cracks around the edges of the cargo hold's door and within moments, the door slowly swung downwards to provide a ramp that sat comfortably on top of the loading bay's hanger. Almost suddenly they were greeted by the sounds of bustle and urgency which were quite loud in Omega's large port and it was hard to translate the many squawks and growls that were heard into anything understandable, the loading bay was busy and crowded and Ishtar was quite relieved by this as it gave them both the perfect cover to pass through almost unnoticed by anyone who may of been expecting their arrival close by.

As soon as the door came to a halt, Garrus took his cue to leave and briskly jogged off the ship into the crowd that swarmed around the center of the port. Ishtar grunted under her breath as she watched him disappear into the crowd that breathed and pulsed with alien life until she could no longer see him at all.

"Charming..." Ishtar looked over the crowd once more before turning her attention to the crates inside the hold. "...not even a thank you or a good bye."

**--**

Garrus bumped shoulders with one too many alien species as he made his way through the port, he was very surprised at the lack of security hanging around the area that breached out into the city itself. This prospect almost made him feel as though he liked the place already, no security protocols, no confirmation of his status and no weapon checks... in fact, he was extremely impressed with the lack of any sort of welcoming committee thus far.

As he reached the exit of the port, he wrinkled his nose in protest at the scents that surrounded his senses in a steady increase of potency. Gone was the scent of metal and fuel, it was now replaced with the smell of thousands upon thousands of alien species that moved with and against each other in a bitter, sour and salty ocean of sweat and pheromones. He shook his head vigorously for a couple of seconds, trying to accommodate the sudden shock to his senses and pressed through the exiting crowd of the station port. There were a lot of angry faces that passed him by as he made his way towards a monument in the center of the station's plaza, he figured Omega was the last place in the universe that anyone in their right mind would spend a well earnt vacation and the expressions of the inhabitants faces here confirmed that to him. The monument was a simple metal obelisk that had an area map console stationed into it's middle and it reflected it's surroundings quite well as Garrus snarled back his disgust at all the filth and grime that was incrusted into the cracks of the monitor.

He scrupulously examined the waypoints on the screen as best as he could manage and was able to make out four sections of the area that were split into loose segments akin to a pie chart. There was a business sector, an industrial sector and a residential sector. The right side of the monitor was far too damaged and cracked to be able to recognise what the last sector might of been and he sighed discontentedly. He knew he was around the outskirts of the business and industrial sector but the map didn't really go into detail about how to navigate around these areas. Earlier on the ship, Ishtar had forewarned him about how easy it was to lose your way around the twisted streets of the city and he didn't pay much attention to her assertion at the time, but now he realised just how right she was and in his current introspection, he scorned himself for not taking her warnings into account.

Before he had a chance to gather his thoughts, he felt a large hand landing heavily upon his shoulder and he spun around on his heels to find a large, gruff krogan standing directly in front of him.

"Hey! Other people are waiting to use this piece of shit..." The krogan barked in annoyance. "Move it!"

Garrus stepped aside instantly, allowing the krogan to move in front of the monitor and use the console as he pleased. There was no use in getting into a fight so early on and although he was heavily armed, he didn't fancy taking his chances against an eight foot tall krogan who may or may not have biotic abilities that could and would send his ass flying into a point of singularity in an instant.

The krogan stared at him viciously before turning his attention back towards the monitor. "Damn turians..." he muttered audibly "...I can't wait for the day that they all get nuked from existence."

Garrus ignored the offensive comment and shifted his gaze nonchalantly towards the direction of the business sector and decided it was due time to start making his way into that area. He had no idea how to make his way through there but his instincts told him that he might have a better chance with asking for relevant information at the local bars around that area, that all depended of course if there was free access into those areas without any signs or forms of hostilities or trouble.

**--**

The port hadn't got any quieter since she first disembarked on the bay and by afternoon the crowd just seemed to grow larger and larger. Many of them were coming in and out of the docking bay to get to their ships and a whole lot more were alighting their ships just to get onto the bay itself.

Ishtar had her cargo set up in front of the interceptor's hull within the first half hour and within minutes she managed to attract quite a number of interested patrons who were ogling her goods on display. She had traded her whole stock of exotic furs for a reasonable amount of fuel as well as a few electronic goods that were just cluttering up the ship and serving no real use. She recognised a short, round volus just off to her side as one of her most eager and regular customers and as she worked on bartering with others, she smiled and offered the volus a warm greeting. The volus lifted his arm and gave a friendly wave back as he tried to scoot in between two rather large elcors who were both taking their time in haggling over the right price for one of the biotic amplifiers that she had on the table.

As the volus squeezed past the two bartering elcor to the edge of the table, he gently rested his hand on top of Ishtar's own and she looked down quickly at him in response.

"You should take the time to go and see him later on..." the volus began as he took his hand away from Ishtar's own, he sucked in another blast of conditioned air from inside his suit before continuing "...he would be surprised and overjoyed to see you back so soon."

Ishtar stood up straight and rolled her shoulders a little in a half-assed attempt at a stretch before leaning in close to the volus again. She knew exactly who he was talking about and although she could appreciate the volus' gentle tact with initiating a request, she still didn't take too kindly to other people getting involved in her personal business.

"Maybe later, I'm busy right now." She turned to the elcors who were standing by either side of him and smiled to them whilst handing them their goods. The volus took this as an obvious sign and a poor attempt at a brush-off and he shook his head bashfully before turning to rummage through one of the crates to look for a hidden bargain or maybe somewhere to hide his slight embarrassment for being so forward with her.

**--**

The twisting maze of streets around Omega's districts were severely frustrating to Garrus, he had spent the last fifteen minutes going around in a complete circle. He started around the back of a communication repair store and ended up just a block away from it nearly a quarter of an hour later on. His anger and frustration was beginning to ebb to the surface and he slammed the ball of his fist against the side of a pawn shop building. Placing his fingers over the bridge of his nose as he squeezed his eyes shut, he felt a terrible headache coming on and the smell that rose from this hollowed-out rock of a station was just making it all the worse for him.

He slowly opened his eyes again once the sharp pain had passed and he noticed a crumpled up figure just opposite him on the other side of the street that was leaning up against a disused building. He frowned and took a step forward, carefully pushing through the two way crowd that was streaming by him in an almost unbreakable line until he reached the feet of the sitting figure on the ground.

The fetal-positioned creature reached out with a five-fingered hand from beneath a dusty and grimy canvas cloth that covered it from head to toe. "Spare credits...? It croaked with a dry cough and a wheeze "...maybe leftover food?"

Garrus bent down until he was at head-level with the figure, balancing comfortably on the front of both of his digitigrade feet. "If you can show me how to get to the edges of the residential area, I'll get you food and a place to stay for the night."

The figure planted a hand against the wall for support and slowly rose to his feet, Garrus followed him upwards until they were standing straight at eye level, but the man seemed to have a severely bad posture as his vertebrae bent forwards in an awkward manner, giving him the appearance of having a hump upon his back. The man placed his other hand on Garrus' shoulder as he steadied his stumbling until he was satisfied he had better control of his feet.

"I can show you anything you want in this forsaken snakepit.." the man laughed with a wheeze. "I know where all the best consort offices are as well, real good ones." he crooned at Garrus' ear with a subtle hint of perversity in his tone.

"That's not what I'm really looking for..." Garrus began with a slight nervous chuckle "I want to go for a drink, free of distractions of course..." The man nodded at him from underneath his shroud as if he understood, even though it didn't seem as genuine as Garrus had hoped.

"I know of several bars close to the residential area. They seem to get good business there as a lot of the people who work in the business and industrial areas like to have a drink or two before work even starts!" The man bellowed out a roaring laugh before violently coughing into his hand, as he caught his breath once again he beat at his chest with his fist before settling back down into a normal breathing pattern.

"Alright, take me there then." Garrus began as he walked ahead of the man by a few long strides. He stopped for a moment when he realised he was walking alone and he turned on his heel when he noticed that the hobo was a deliberately slow walker. The man waved a hand and beckoned him back and Garrus stayed where he was, waiting for the hobo to catch up.

"Not everyone is as fit and limber as you are, turian" The hobo joked, placing his hand back upron Garrus' shoulder for support. "I'll get you there before evening, don't you worry."


	8. Chapter 8

Note: This is the last chapter that I'll be working on this year as it's coming close to Christmas time. I will be extremely busy after December and I may not be as frequent in uploading new chapters as I have done so in the past three months. So this is just to let you all know that my lack of activity in the upcoming months won't be because I've abandoned the story, they just won't be added as regulary as usual. :)

* * *

Chapter Eight.

"Ishtar!"

A voice beckoned from behind the crates that Ishtar had just about finished packing away only moments earlier. It was a clear and distinctive baritone that rang clearly above the bustle of the docking bay.

"Over here!"

Ishtar stopped in her steps then smiled from behind her mask as she recognized the voice and carefully placed the sack of grain back down onto the floor. She turned around to see a tall and burly turian standing in front of the sliding doors of the control room of the spaceport and she waved over to him in acknowledgement before breaking out into a short but brisk jog across the bay to meet up with him. The turian held his arms out open to her and embraced her roughly as she ran into them, resting her arms loosly around his hips. He was chuckling as he petted down her back before setting her back down to take a better look at her.

Ishtar was still smiling beneath her scarf when he raised his hand to cup her chin underneath his open palm; he carefully thumbed down part of the scarf covering her face and gave her cheeks a gentle squeeze from either side.

"You're looking well, Ishtar" He concluded with a sharp smile, releasing his thumb from her scarf and resting his hand down onto her shoulder. "I don't like you hanging around this dock though, you know how dangerous it is to be wandering around out here alone at this time of the evening."

"I'm fine Lindorn" she nodded, "I'm just waiting for someone but I intend to pack up and leave in a few hours."

The turian frowned a little in concern "Is that so? Well… " He raised his gaze from the shorter woman in front of him and scanned his deep sapphire-blue eyes across the cargo bay. He didn't see anything out of the ordinary but he still didn't want to deal with the troubles that a lone woman hanging around the docks could bring. Satisfied that there were no signs of potential danger at the moment, he gave Ishtar a gentle squeeze of her shoulder. "…Come on, you can wait in the office until your friend decides to show up."

Ishtar smiled at the invitation and pulled the scarf further down her face until it sat loosely around her neck. "Thank you Lindorn." She replied as the turian sleekly maneuvered over to her side, placing his hand upon her back as they both walked back to the control room.

Lindorn was a rough but handsome fellow, he stood just shy of being two metres tall and his graceful and fluid movements mismatched his seemingly heavy gait. The plating of his face was a warm tan colour that was fading slightly around his mandibles with age and the markings he bore around his cheeks and brows were a striking royal blue hue that only seemed to emphasize the vivid dark blue of his eyes. He ushered Ishtar carefully through the doors and followed her close behind before he sat himself down at the controls of the docks atmosphere sealants. He swerved around in his swivel chair and grinned, patting at the seat beside his own for Ishtar to take her place and she paused for a few moments to take in the surroundings before sitting herself back into the chair.

"What brings you back to Omega?" He began as he drew up a lever for the pressure barrier as another ship came in to dock just beyond the glass panel in front of them that overlooked the whole port.

"I'm here on business…" Ishtar replied as she stared out through the glass, watching as the ship was clamped into place by giant arms that held it steadily in alignment with the catwalks. Her stoic demeanor only caused the turian to shift his seat up closer to her, his knee gently pressed up against the outside of her thigh and her private comfort zone was instantly compromised.

"I've not seen you for years Ishtar, why would you want to come back to this hellhole?" The smooth baritone of his voice purred with curiousity as he watched her intently for answers. His eyes locked onto her face and she could feel them boring straight through her skull, there was something unsettling yet captivating about those eyes and it proved difficult to shy away from them with secrets.

She turned her head to Lindorn and sighed, there was no wall to hide behind anymore and her face showed signs of burden and regret. Lindorn kept his gaze on her and began swinging his chair slightly to and fro, his knee softly tapping against her thigh in an unspoken gesture to coax her into confessing her thoughts.

"…I attracted the attention of a Spectre, it's who I'm waiting for."

The leg tapping ceased and Lindorn breathed out a long drawn groan. "I… I don't even want to know how you've got yourself into this mess." He paused for a while, his hand to his face as he attempted to absorb the seriousness of the situation. After a minute he raised his head and leaned forward towards Ishtar, bringing his face only inches away from her own and she winced, waiting to be reprimanded for her foolishness. "You must realize that if his identity is revealed, he could risk being taken hostage and used as blackmail against the council of Citadel space." His tone began to steadily grow with anger "This is utterly stupid of you, I thought you knew better than to pull a stupid stunt like this for credits!"

Ishtar remorsefully dropped her gaze to the floor. "I know… which is why I'm helping him, which is why I'm here." Lindorn snorted cynically before pulling his face away, turning his attention to the chime of the console that signaled for him to raise the pressure sealants for the ship in bay. He flipped the switches hastily, releasing his obvious frustration onto them before turning back to Ishtar, folding his arms across his chest and folding his leg across the top of his other, staring back into Ishtars eyes without blinking.

"Do you know what they do to Spectres here? You're in a lawless almost anarchic zone, he won't be granted the privilege of a quick and painless death that's for sure."

Ishtar's face wrinkled slightly with grief as she watched Lindorn rise from his seat. He moved over towards the sliding doors and sealed them shut with a command from his omni-tool. He turned around and stared at her; the crimson hood he wore framed the serious expression across his face.

"I think you better start explaining yourself…" He began with a foreboding tone "…I want all of it and I don't want any bullshit."

Ishtar swallowed hard, suddenly the room felt very cold and isolated and she slowly nodded at the command. Lindorn drew closer to her in bold, eager steps and sat back down in his seat, the light mercenary armour he wore reflected the beams from the overhead light in a dull crimson strobe as he flipped a switch on the console to draw a blind over the glass panel of the viewport.

After an hour of Ishtar's story, Lindorn had a better idea of what it was she was dealing with and why she had returned to Omega. He had decided for himself to give the Spectre the benefit of the doubt about not releasing any sensitive information about himself but he wasn't so sure that he would be returning to the docks any time soon. He reminded Ishtar of how easy it was to become lost on the streets and how easy it was to run into any kind of trouble ranging from random muggings to occasional shootouts and he suggested that she should leave as soon as there was enough indication that the Spectre wasn't going to return.

He picked at the side of one of his talons in thought as he watched over the top of his hands at Ishtar who didn't seem as nervous as she did at the start of the conversation and finally he gave a swift but gentle dig to the side of her leg with his foot to break the silence.

"If things don't go as planned, just make sure you take out Rizok yourself. I can help you to some extent if you should pass through my domain again, but I refuse to get involved with any matters further than that."

Ishtar nodded and relaxed back into the seat, resting her own foot against Lindorns in a gesture of mild affection and comfort. She yawned absent-mindedly before tilting her head to the side, watching both feet as they tapped up together in a slow, muted rhythm.

"This spectre..." He began in a careful, uncertain manner. "Is there anything else going on between you two?"

Ishtar blinked out of her momentary hypnotism and looked at the turian questionably. "No, I don't mix business with pleasure, you of all people should know that."

Lindorn nodded and flipped a switch to raise the blindpanels that covered the viewport and the crimson glow inside the room soon dissipated as the artificial light from the spaceport outside began to fill the room.

"How's our mother?" she asked in a relaxed tone as Lindorn gazed out through the glass. He looked drawn and tired but his work shift did not end until early the next morning. It was both a blessing and a pain to him that the nights were quite slow, traffic awaiting dock procedures around this time of night were uncommon but the lack of anything else to do was quite bothersome at times.

"She's fine Ishtar" He responded with a smile "Her civil duties don't call on her to exhort much effort into her work." He laughed a little "Kind of like my own."

Ishtar chuckled quietly to herself and kept her eyes on his face as he continued, "We worry about you all the time… you just won't settle though and father has pretty much given up on telling you what it is that you should be doing with your life." He took his eyes away from the spaceport and rested them on hers. There was a subtle sadness in his gaze this time around and Ishtar glanced away to the side in an attempt to evade the reason behind that expression.

Lindorn read her aversion clearly, "You know I'm not even gonna go there Ishtar…"

He drew his foot slowly away from hers and sat upright in his seat. "I've tried to convince you too many times on what it is I feel for you, but you just refuse to acknowledge it." He rubbed the top of his head in slight embarrassment before turning his chair around to face the control panels. "I've been trying for 12 years, I honestly gave up when you left again a few years ago"

"It's not that I don't acknowledge it Lindorn, it's just that I accept it without returning the feelings."

Lindorn shook his head wearily "As I said, I gave up all those years ago. You're happy scouring the galaxy alone, I would be foolish to even entertain the idea that you would finally settle down with me on the colony back on Cuuthlok..."

His tone raised slightly in desperation, he was losing his grip on reverse-psychology and Ishtar sensed it immediatly. She sighed and rose from her seat and Lindorn simultaneously rose up alongside her. He placed both of his hands on her shoulders while rubbing the front of them with his thumbs.

"I'm sorry… that's the last time I'll ever mention it."

Ishtar looked up towards him as she began to slowly wrap her scarf around her head. "I know… Call me through the ships' intercom if you need anything else. I'd rather not be seen talking to anyone for too long."

Lindorn nodded, he knew he had crossed the line and he accepted her refusal to argue. They stood in silence for a brief moment before she reached out her hand with a gesture of farewell and he refused to return it. Then suddenly and gruffly, he pulled her close to his chest in a playful embrace, causing her to chuckle which dispelled the once awkward silence. He released her several seconds later and then stepped towards the control room doors and activated the locks with his omni-tool to let her out.

Lindorn stood at the door as she walked by him in silence towards the Cobra MKIII docked in the bay; there was no point in chasing after her again this time he thought to himself as she wavered out from his vision. He got over the initial shock of her leaving the first time it happened and over time, he had learnt to just let her go her own way.


End file.
